Perspective

In journalistic fashion, Tom Jordan backs up his race accounts with a plethora of first- and second-hand quotations; Jordan's "stride-by-stride" accounting of racing appears very researched and objective. However, it is evident that Jordan has a lot of admiration bordering on adoration for Steve Prefontaine. The subject of this biography is clearly a man the author wants the reader to admire and see the man's positive qualities. This stance lends a bit of a selective quality to the text and harms objectivity. For example, very little is mentioned of Prefontaine's "To heck with love of country" speech, although the speech at the time was quite controversial and polarizing. The fact that Prefontaine was drinking hardly factors in to Jordan's elegiac prose in the last couple of chapters; an opportunity to warn against drinking and driving is missed. Given this prejudice, the reader is compelled to wonder if the...